London, 2070

Jack had visited his fair share of hospitals during his long life. This one wasn't particularly different from the others. Same white walls, same long corridors, same preoccupied people walking around. And the same smell. The smell of sickness, of death. That part of the human experience Jack couldn't share. All he could be was a spectator.

That was why he was there. To see someone die. To hold someone's hand while they exhaled their last breath. Again. He should be used to this by now, and in some way he was.

But this time was different. The person dying was someone he loved deeply, someone he had love for over sixty years and who had broke his unbreakable heart.

He found the door he was looking for. He hesitated a moment before opening it, his heart ponding in his chest. He was there to meet a ghost. The ghost of a life that could have been but never was. He wonder if he was doing the right thing. Maybe he should have just walked away. But he couldn't. Not again. Not this time.

He took a breath, as if he was about to go underwater, and walked in. His heart sank.

The old man was asleep, but not peaceful. It was as if every breath was hurting him, as if he was fighting through every simple sip of air.

Jack stood at the foot of the bed, unable to take a closer look. The old man was dying of pneumonia. Something hard to fight when you're 87 years old.

Jack was sure the old man could see the irony in this, dying in the most mundane of ways after all he had been through. Life was a curious thing, for sure.

Jack knew the man didn't want him to see him like this. He had made a very hard choice, a long time ago, to make sure of that. But Jack didn't care. This was worth breaking a promise.

He finally managed to move. Two steps. They seemed like a thousand. He took the old man's hand. The same hand he had hold thousands, maybe millions of times. Now it was wrinkled, weak, full of black spots. Jack wanted to cry, but he couldn't. The tears where blocked by a knot in his throat.

He looked at his face. After all this time, he could have recognize him anywhere. His nose was exactly the same. He smiled, remembering how he blushed every time Jack told him how cute his nose was.

The man opened his eyes, and Jack felt a knife twisting in his stomach. Those eyes were still exactly the same. Big, blue, bright, just as they were when he wasn't much more than a boy, the first time they met.

Jack never thought he would have seen those eyes again, if not in his dreams. He knew the man had recognized him. He squeezed his hand a bit tighter.

"Long time no see, Ianto Jones."